Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) is currently the most widely used browser on the World Wide Web, with over 90% of the market share, a position it has held since 1999. A major contributing factor to this success is IE's packaging — it's included with every copy of the Windows operating system. Because of its use by an overwhelming number of users, web site design is almost entirely dictated by what can or cannot be viewed in IE. Many times this fact tends to put the developer in the middle of the browser war, between a rock ("the W3C") and a hard place ("Microsoft").
Most web site developers try to follow the standards set forth by the W3C. However, Microsoft has made it clear that it follows its own standards, whether they agree with the W3C or not. Consider the following from the IE support area (emphasis is ours):
Q. Is Internet Explorer committed to implementing standard X in the future?
A. Microsoft is committed to implementing the Internet standards that make sense to allow our customers to build great solutions. As standards emerge, we evaluate them to see which standards might best serve our customers' needs.
Q. Why does Microsoft continue to add functionality to Internet Explorer that is not part of any standard?
A. Microsoft is committed to supporting the appropriate standards that are most useful to our customers. Microsoft uses innovation within the platform to allow customers to easily build powerful solutions.
That is not to say that IE doesn't support web standards. However, because of Microsoft's insistence to pick and choose from the standards, it does have CSS problems, as detailed in the article, Windows Explorer vs. the Standards. The "Position is Everything" web site covers many of the CSS bugs in current browser versions (most of them seem to be in Internet Explorer). Interestingly, some of these problems arose in the updates and did not take place in IE 5.x.
Microsoft released Internet Explorer 6.0 in 2001. The current edition, version 6 SP1, was released on September 9, 2002. According to a conversation on Microsoft TechNet Chat, "As part of the OS, IE will continue to evolve, but there will be no future standalone installations. IE6 SP1 is the final standalone installation." In other words, if you want Internet Explorer version 7, you had better be prepared to plunk down $100-$200 for a new operating system, whether you want it or not. It seems that Microsoft is not only trying to dictate web standards; it is also attempting to dictate what you have on your hard drive (according to a recent report, it looks like there may be one more IE upgrade, 6 SP2, as part of the Windows XP Service Pack 2 - XP SP2).
